A 51 year old man from Illinois died after having five teeth extacted in July 2021. He had has teeth extracted by an oral surgeon in Lake County which is North of Chicago.
During the procedure he was given as given a single dose of 200 milligrams propofol. There was no anesthesiologist present and the oral surgeon was the one also administrating the anesthesia. During the tooth extractions, the man stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. Emergency responders were called and when they arrived took the man to a hospital where he died the next day.
According to statements from the Lake County Coroner there was too high of a dose of propofol given and this dose would cause a person to not breathe. Further, the oral surgeon did not supply supplemental oxygen until the tooth extractions were already occuring and should done so at the start. Additionally, the oral surgeon did not monitor the man’s vitals close enough to prevent any potential complications as not all the necessary monitoring devices like an EKG were set up. The Lake County Coroner also said that the treatment was a deviation from the standard of care due to the reasons already stated and given the man’s past medical history.
The Lake County Coroner was very critical of the single provider/operator model that the oral surgeon was following and said that there should have been an additional specialist assisting so that there was one person to administer the anesthesia and another to perform the oral surgery, and the same person doing both jobs. Additionally the death was said to be preventable by the Lake County Coroner. Specifically the Lake County Coroner is quoted as saying:
“Oral surgeons are in a unique position where they can administer both the anesthetic and perform the procedure. This is problematic when someone’s not exclusively focused on administering the anesthetic, which is something quite serious. So this was a recipe for disaster.”
Critistisms of the single provider/operation model have been discussed before on this site, see for example the post Is it Safe for Children to Receive Sedation/Anesthesia from an Oral Surgeon or Dentist using a Single Provider/Operator Model? Legally, an oral surgeon can currently do both the dental work and adminsiter the anestheisa but some feel this approach is more likely to result in serious injury or death like in this case. This model is more financially lucrative for oral surgeons because they can bill for both the oral surgery and for the anesthesia.
Sources:
- NBC5Chicago, “Man Dies After Being Given Too Much Anesthesia During Dental Surgery: Coroner“, July 22, 2021.
- Sam Borcia, “Volo man dies after being given too much anesthesia during surgery at dentist in Gurnee, coroner says,” Lake & McHenry County Scanner, July 20, 2021